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Let the Earth stretch Saturday night just a leap second longer!

Sat, 30/06/2012 - 13:33 by Minnie Mahendru

International timekeepers are busy adding up one more second to the time clock at 12’o clock worldwide time on Saturday, 30th June, 2012. The official atomic clocks are being coordinated by the time keepers from time to time. All these adjustments have to be made because of the gradual reduction in the Earth’s speed due to the moon’s tidal pull and the atomic clock also moves a tad too fast.

Composite images of the Earth are regularly taken from the visible/Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite Instrument from NASA‘s Suomi NPP satellite. The international time custodians have been adding a single second all throughout the world to the clock at midnight as June 30 creeps into July 1st i.e. 8p.m. EDT, Saturday. The time across the whole universe will be 11:59:59, before midnight and the strange reading of the time will be 11:59:60 at midnight. “The time it takes the Earth to rotate on its axis — the definition of a day — is now about two milliseconds longer than it was 100 years ago,” stated Geoff Chester, U.S. Naval Observatory, keeper of the official U.S. atomic clocks. “That's each day, so it adds up to nearly three-quarters of a second a year.”

The official people who record the time state that they insert a leap second every once in a while to allow the sun to remain at its peak at midday regardless of anything during standard time. This is the 25th overall leap and the first second leap since January 2009. Daniel Gambis, head of the Earth Orientation Service in Paris that coordinates leap seconds claims that the next leap second most likely won't be required until 2015 or 2016.

This leap second change in time should not have any detectable influence or hassle on computers and other technological gadgets that work on a specific regularity or time scale. They are programmed to be adjusted for a jump of a leap second claimed Gambis on Friday. There had been a global discussion between the authorized timekeepers worldwide to remove this application of adding together leap seconds. The time keepers have come to a decision they want more time to reflect on this subject and next debate on the issue will be held in 2015.

Till then as Chester says, and the moment demands "you get an extra second, don't waste it."

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